[HN Gopher] Liberating out-of-copyright photos from SmartFrame's...
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Liberating out-of-copyright photos from SmartFrame's DRM
Author : edent
Score : 139 points
Date : 2022-05-15 12:12 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (shkspr.mobi)
(TXT) w3m dump (shkspr.mobi)
| baisq wrote:
| > As Bruce Schneier once said: trying to make digital files
| uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet.
|
| Wow, that quote is so profound!
| mistrial9 wrote:
| I know at least two USA people that I grew up with, that have
| upper-middle class lives now with money made in these consumer
| digital products spaces. Lots of free-culture people complain
| (rightly!) but the amount of commerce that is generated with
| (unfair?) DRM is substantial. As an American, it always hit me
| that China flagrently ignored copyright, like Disney etc
| knockoffs.. how can authors get paid? how do photographers get
| paid to have real lives? It is easy to complain about DRM and I
| agree, but it is not a complete discussion without the part
| where creators get paid, somehow.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| As one of those free-culture people, my complaint about DRM
| isn't so much that I can't legally copy the thing that I want
| to copy. My complaint is that legally empowering DRM has
| allowed non-creatives to abuse protections intended for
| copyrighted works to enforce basically any restriction that
| benefits their business model. e.g. DRM on printer
| cartridges, garage door openers, or OneWheel batteries is NOT
| LEGALLY ENFORCEABLE, but merely putting DRM on those things
| gives you the ability to legally harass lawful competitors
| for the decade it takes for SCOTUS to say "no, seriously,
| there is no copyright in your god damned battery DRM".
|
| Furthermore, copyright does not protect all creators equally.
| There are access-to-justice issues in the underlying law,
| life+70 terms do not help anyone other than large legacy
| publishers, and the technical restrictions being implemented
| in the name of trying to make things easier on copyright
| owners also risks throwing out the entire concept of Fair Use
| on the Internet. It is very deeply accepted law in the US and
| other countries that when copyright and free speech are in
| conflict, free speech generally wins out. However, technical
| restrictions _cannot adjudicate the law_ ; and mandating
| technical enforcement by means that do not respect exceptions
| in the law is effectively repealing those exceptions.
|
| This, collectively, creates a tiered system in which creators
| with better representation, deeper back-catalogs, or who
| create works that are less likely to be flagged by an upload
| filter are protected by the system, while those who are
| independent, getting started in their craft, or are just
| engaged in review or critique are treated as alien and
| suspect. The current system, inclusive of any proposed
| changes by the copyright maximalists, will not actually get
| photographers paid. You cannot represent every copyright
| dispute in court, and the technical systems intended to
| substitute for court representation are a mockery of the
| judicial process.
|
| I will agree with you that a lot of people in the tech
| industry have a "kill and eat the creative class" mentality
| about them. Their obsession with NFTs - financialization as
| copyright alternative[0] - is a good case study of that.
| However, the distrust of copyright and patent law is not
| merely a matter of demanding free shit. It is learned
| behavior from decades of copyright maximalists downplaying or
| ignoring our valid concerns by insisting that if they didn't
| get everything they wanted, they would take their toys and go
| home.
|
| As for China, they've done way more egregious shit than just
| not prosecute someone selling Disney knock-offs[1]. They do
| not have a functional concept of freedom-of-speech[2], and
| the fact that media companies will shit their pants about
| knock-off goods but stay silent on _actual censorship_
| indicates that their priorities are hella warped. Who cares
| what we are _allowed_ to say, as long as we can own it,
| right?
|
| And that's really just a microcosm of the whole problem with
| copyright maximalism. Maximalists don't care about the death
| of fair use online, as long as they can negotiate their way
| out of whatever upload filters they shackle everyone else
| with. They don't care about free speech as long as they are
| on the inside and know how to negotiate whatever rules are
| imposed upon them. To them, copyright is not something that
| protects small creators; it's something that protects them
| _from_ small creators.
|
| [0] Note: a lot of people who bought NFTs did not understand
| this, and either thought they were buying actual copyright
| title, or thought that "right-clickers" were literally
| stealing their work. This was a misreading of the (already-
| flawed) ideas behind NFTs; the idea was that you could sell
| artifically-scarce tokens representing an otherwise freely-
| shareable work. Thus, instead of holding a monopoly on
| copying and using your monopoly power to fund the creation of
| new work, you could just rely on selling unregulated
| speculative instruments to do the same thing.
|
| [1] Also, under no circumstances should Disney be allowed to
| continue owning Mickey Mouse in _any_ country - but that 's a
| slightly different issue.
|
| [2] Including the slightly watered-down concepts of "freedom
| of expression" in other countries. The differences are narrow
| enough that it shouldn't matter.
| harshreality wrote:
| > decades of copyright maximalists downplaying or ignoring
| our valid concerns by insisting that if they didn't get
| everything they wanted, they would take their toys and go
| home.
|
| I _want_ them to take their toys and go home. I don 't
| believe civilization or culture would be harmed the
| slightest if the small benefit of copyright enforcement
| (against non-commercial copying) went away. Most creators
| don't make a living from their work, and keep trying
| anyway. If they do make a living, it's usually less because
| the work is amazing, and more that they (or their
| publishers) are really good at promotion and created a
| compelling narrative about the work. Parallel to that, and
| in a tiny minority, there are a few major artists at any
| given time that are printing money making content that
| sells itself, and a few more who are making content that
| has enough of a niche audience that they can make a living
| through patreon, youtube, substack, etc. Everyone else's
| stuff is not that good, doesn't resonate that well, and it
| takes promotion to sell it.
|
| None of those paths to monetization require copyright
| enforcement against ordinary people sharing music or tv or
| movies or books with each other. If the content is good it
| will sell enough to make it worthwhile to produce. If it's
| not that good, the creator is more like a salesperson, and
| should get good at that, go hungry, or find a day job.
| btdmaster wrote:
| This would be true if copyright were held by authors and
| lasted within their lifetime, but that has not been the case
| for a while.
|
| The idea that authors were complaining about their work being
| copied (rather than being flattered by it) or that all
| artists before copyright were poor due to rampant plagiarism
| is not accurate at all.[1][2]
|
| [1] https://questioncopyright.org/promise
|
| [2] https://blog.ncase.me/why-copies/
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Ice.
| masswerk wrote:
| AKA encryption. But you can still unfreeze it and it'll
| become wet again...
| danmur wrote:
| Oooh, or electrolysis!
| judge2020 wrote:
| But is water actually wet? Wouldn't what makes it wet instead
| be classified as making the body of water larger instead?
| probably_wrong wrote:
| I always informally understood "wet" as something having
| (excess?) water. In that case, I'd say water is not wet
| because wetness is the result of adding water to something
| dry, which doesn't apply to water itself.
|
| For water to be wet you'd need "wetness" to be a property you
| can substract from it, and yet I don't think "dry water" is a
| concept that exists.
|
| So I'm going with "no".
| yunohn wrote:
| Tangent: Hydrophobic water -
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1Iya8Dpsoew
| jwilk wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_water
| ryeights wrote:
| >Wouldn't what makes it wet instead be classified as making
| the body of water larger instead?
|
| No. See: wet paint
| cwillu wrote:
| See also, for contrast: dry ice
| fxtentacle wrote:
| I did a pilot project together with the SmartFrame guys around
| 2016 and I remember we also discussed this technical weakness of
| their DRM back then.
|
| But it turns out, it doesn't really matter in practice. You
| removing the DRM from the image is a completely different legal
| aspect than you saving an unprotected JPEG. Circumvention of the
| DRM is easier to sue for than pure copyright infringement.
| SmartFrame's business value is that it protects just enough for
| an IP insurance to cover you, while not slowing things down
| unnecessarily with better encryption (that won't stop determined
| techies anyway).
|
| Also, by "recovering" the image in this way, you strip it off
| IPTC copyright metadata which makes your copy illegal to use in
| the UK, for example.
| realusername wrote:
| > Also, by "recovering" the image in this way, you strip it off
| IPTC copyright metadata which makes your copy illegal to use in
| the UK, for example.
|
| Not sure about the UK but in a lot of countries there are
| exceptions for interoperability which would nullify this issue
| since you are converting from an obscure, undocumented and not
| interoperable format to a standard image format.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Yeah, we did get format shifting but it only lasted a few
| months until the Tory government reversed it. There's nothing
| that reasonable in Fair Dealing.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| >Also, by "recovering" the image in this way, you strip it off
| IPTC copyright metadata which makes your copy illegal to use in
| the UK, for example.//
|
| You're talking about something that's out of copyright?
| Copyright law doesn't specify anything for out of copyright
| works.
|
| Could you cite the precedent you're relying on.
|
| _My own opinion, not legal advice._
| tjoff wrote:
| This was always the case with DRM music back in the day, or
| DVDs after it was cracked etc.
|
| Or, the very much infuriating HDCP that was cracked before
| being in use and that hasn't stopped anything but legal use.
| Causing immense frustration worldwide.
|
| We are poisoning ourselves.
| pinum wrote:
| >you strip it off IPTC copyright metadata which makes your copy
| illegal to use in the UK
|
| I might be mistaken, but that doesn't sound right. Not all
| formats even support that metadata in the first place. Can you
| point me to more info on this? Is there UK legislation that
| refers to such low-level details as image file metadata?
| haxorito wrote:
| 2 tea pots to this gentleman, please.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Also, by "recovering" the image in this way, you strip it off
| IPTC copyright metadata which makes your copy illegal to use in
| the UK, for example.
|
| Is that still true when there's no copyright on the image? How
| could that possibly be enforced? If it were read, stripped out,
| but then replaced (not altered) would that be okay?
| adolph wrote:
| Its all fun and games until copyright lawyers get involved.
|
| https://www.techdirt.com/company/prenda-law/page/12/
| cesarb wrote:
| > You removing the DRM from the image is a completely different
| legal aspect than you saving an unprotected JPEG.
|
| Wait, but if I understood this article correctly... They are
| saving an unprotected JPEG. Each 256x256 chunk is a separate
| unprotected JPEG, as can be seen in the network inspector
| screenshot (it wouldn't show the preview on hover if that
| wasn't the case). When going through that route, he isn't even
| working around any kind of copyright protection; saving an
| image from that screen is normal operation of the software (it
| isn't even a modified copy of the browser or JavaScript
| manipulation or something like that).
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Firstly, they claimed that the photographs were still under
| copyright.
|
| Note that you can in some cases copyright the _digitisation_ of
| out-of-copyright photos, if there is intellectual creation
| involved in their restoration or touching up. Simply removing
| blemishes ins 't enough, but I don't know what they did in this
| case.
| Animats wrote:
| _Note that you can in some cases copyright the digitisation of
| out-of-copyright photos_
|
| No. See _Bridgeman vs. Corel._ That was settled years ago.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > No. See Bridgeman vs. Corel. That was settled years ago.
|
| That's a US judgement. Both of the organisations in this case
| are British.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel.
| ..
|
| > As a US court case, Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. is
| not binding upon UK courts.
|
| And the UK government has a different opinion, which matches
| what I said.
|
| https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/copyright-
| notice-...
|
| > However, there is a degree of uncertainty regarding whether
| copyright can exist in digitised copies of older images for
| which copyright has expired.
| Animats wrote:
| That continues: "However, according to established case
| law, the courts have said that copyright can only subsist
| in subject matter that is original in the sense that it is
| the author's own 'intellectual creation'. Given this
| criterion, it seems unlikely that what is merely a
| retouched, digitised image of an older work can be
| considered as 'original'."
|
| There has been a huge attempt by Bridgeman and others to
| create FUD in this area. It didn't work. Partly because
| Wikipedia is willing to go to court if necessary.[1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Portrait_Gallery
| _and_...
| chrisseaton wrote:
| ...that's literally what I already said though?
|
| > if there is intellectual creation involved in their
| restoration or touching up
|
| Bizarre how people come in saying 'no.' with a big full
| stop, give a confused precedent from an entirely
| different country and legal system, then quote from links
| I gave them that paraphrase what I said and make it clear
| that it isn't a simple 'no.' or 'settled' like they said
| it was.
| noptd wrote:
| >you can in some cases copyright the digitisation of out-
| of-copyright photos
|
| I don't have an opinion in either direction but it seems
| unnecessary to criticize the disagreement of others when
| even your own link refutes your claim, as Animats pointed
| out above. "Let's not throw stones in glass houses" and
| such.
|
| Are there any examples to cite that support your claim?
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > when even your own link refutes your claim
|
| No it doesn't - it says it's not a settled issue.
|
| "No ... settled" vs an actual official UK government
| website on the subject contradicting with actually
| there's a "degree of uncertainty". How much of a better
| source can you get than that?
| adolph wrote:
| This is not Digital Rights Management (DRM).
|
| At best SmartFrame's website claims "Protect your images from
| right-clicks, drag-and-drop actions and other theft attempts -
| even site-scraping bots."[0] They are using vanilla JavaScript to
| perform this "protection" not DRM.
|
| The author's claim of an authorization header is not convincing.
| That header identifies the site pulling the images and using the
| SmartFrame API, allowing them to do the "Detailed image
| analytics."[0]
|
| 0. https://smartframe.io/content-owners/
| haxorito wrote:
| DRM is insane concept. I haven't yet seen one that would actually
| "work" but like other commentator said main goal is to be
| obstruction enough to prove that you circumvented copyright
| policy in first place and to add to that it makes big bosses feel
| safer.
|
| As far as I'm concerned if you have something that is sooo
| protected don't upload it to public web; to access anything you
| have to, first, download its contents, second - eventually
| decrypt/decode.
| maxloh wrote:
| Do the Netflix's/Windows's DRM work? Did they ever be bypassed?
| realusername wrote:
| They are bypassed, it's just that cracking groups don't
| publish their level 1 methods to not get them patched.
|
| That's the beauty of the asymmetry against DRM, one file
| shared is enough to break it.
| orthoxerox wrote:
| There are torrents of Netflix's shows everwhere.
| e2le wrote:
| Yes, you need only take a quick look at the Movie/TV category
| of most any torrent site.
|
| I would argue that you have a better user experience
| consuming media through torrents as opposed to the 6+
| different user hostile streaming services.
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